Prince of Persia: The Simpletons of Time
by Mecha Scorpion
Summary: Some say that time is like a river, flowing swift and... wait, nobody says that? Oh. Come, let me tell you a tale like several you have ever heard, a tale of very conveniently placed objects and magical sand. NOW WITH PREVIEWS!
1. Sands of Time

Prince of Persia: The Simpletons of Time

Hi, guys! I decided that Sands of Time needed a real parody so you got one. One-shot probably, I'm afraid. If things don't always happen in chronological order, don't worry, but I won't scramble up any really important plot points. Read and review.

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A drop of water came from the heavens, slowly going toward the ground on a dark night. Because we all know how clouds like to rain one drop at a time. The camera milled uneasily, then got bored and decided to film the length of an Indian princess's body. Slowly it panned up her creamy rich thighs, moving to her useless hands that couldn't aim a bow if her life depended on it, which it later often would. Finally it settled upon her face, supposedly beautiful but actually containing the most horribly annoying tool on Earth: her tongue. Or her mouth, or whatever she speaks with.

"Some will tell you that time flows swift and sure in one direction like a river," the Prince said in voice-over, although who would actually say such a thing is unclear. "But I can tell you… they are wrong!"

The drop of water landed. The woman, apparently deathly afraid of precipitation and also equipped with hypersensitive hearing, cowered where she lay.

"Because I am most likely insane due to the sight of everyone I ever knew being turned into grotesque creatures and dying at my own hand, as well as very arrogant and selfish, I am obviously the most informed, reasoned opinion on time's true nature," continued the Prince. "Time is like an ocean in a storm, flowing in all directions, frequently reversing direction, sometimes coming to a stop, going much faster, often moving so fast that… er… anyway, metaphors aside." The camera cut to the Prince walking through a forest, on his way to the princess' castle.

"You may wonder why I tell you this," the Prince said, "so I'll answer that after I subject you to a several-hour story that allows my greatest enemy to prepare himself for a fight with me. Sit back, or rather drop dead so you won't be so annoying, and let me tell you a tale unlike maybe two or three you have ever heard. You see, this story involves… _time travel! _Woooooooooooooooo…"

The camera cut to a large army outside a city. The Prince and his dad were at the front.

"You see," the Prince went on in an unwelcome manner, "the Maharawhatchamacallit had insulted my dad. I, not knowing how hideously irritating his daughter would be, asked my dad if he would settle for possession of Farah. My dad couldn't do that cause of my mother still being around, so war was obviously the next best thing. Peace treaties hadn't been invented yet, you see."

"Why didn't we just have a peace treaty?" grumbled a soldier. "I don't want to die just cause so the Maharamennoodles with the annoying daughter can die for calling my king a stupid-head!"

"Peace treaties haven't been invented yet," observed the Prince sagely. "Oh look, there's the signal! CHARGE!"

"There was no pre-arranged signal," his father said huffily, "and our soldiers aren't ready to attack yet."

Some time later, they were ready enough to attack. The Vizier, advisor to the Maharamalama, had weakened the defenses so the Persians could invade. They charged in. The Vizier casually walked up to the horse of Sharaman, the Persian king, in the midst of the huge battle.

"Excuse me, sire," he said, coughing blood into a handkerchief. The Prince turned up his snooty, orchid-like nose at the sight of it. "I hope you haven't forgotten, (hack choke) our agreement."

"You'll get any of the Maharockemandsockem's treasures you desire," the King assured him. "Provided that they're not the only ones that you would actually be interested in. Those go to my kingdom, as I am so generous and kind."

"I see," the Vizier snarled angrily. The Prince decided to go run around on a horse.

"I would win honor and glory for my father, as clearly owning a massive army and a huge city with a great place isn't enough to make him significant," the Prince scowled, glaring at the Vizier over his shoulder. Before he could finish this thought, a huge pile of rubble fell. Obviously this was the only way to get where he wanted, despite the many streets in the city that would obviously lead him there. The Prince ducked under it, losing his horse and falling unconscious.

The Prince woke up much later, in broad daylight. Apparently the fight had lasted that long. A bunch of guys with a battering ram were pounding at a door. They had either been there for several hours, unable to pound down a wooden door, or they had somehow climbed over an impassable pile of rubble. The Prince didn't care.

"Do you think I felt regret as I looked at how the city had been turned from a peaceful city into one filled with battle?" he lamented. "Well, I didn't. I wanted honor and glory, and no traumatic experiences in my youth would stop me from obsessing over gathering trinkets for my insanely wealthy father. I would be the first to find the Maharappahannock's treasure vaults, which contain mythical items of magic that no other soldier would ever be interested in. Off I go!" He cheerily swaggered toward the men with the battering ram, wondering why they hadn't woken him up, as they were clearly on his side if they were trying to break down a door instead of defend it. Next moment a huge fireball of doom came from the sky and killed them.

Unconcerned, the Prince climbed up several ledges until he reached a long battlement. After teaching him how to climb up a small ledge, the game then began to teach him how to change the direction he was looking in. Furious that he was being treated like an idiot, the Prince fell flat on his face by tripping over his own feet. He then walked off with all the dignity he could muster.

He went toward another bridge but it blew up, very conveniently right as he was about to cross it. The Prince effortlessly leaped over it, as ordinary men are of course extremely gifted in the area of jumping fifteen-foot gaps with the greatest of ease. After jumping another gap, he went into a room, where a large amount of furniture was piled in front of the door.

After fretting over how he would solve such a difficult puzzle, the Prince brightened. "I know what I do! I'll push the furniture out of my way!" He tried, to no avail. "The next best thing," he reasoned, "will be to chop the furniture out of my way, so it will look cool. I'll dull my sword uselessly by doing so, and instead of pieces of furniture in my way there will be large chunks of pieces of furniture, but it's for a good cause." He sliced it out of his way and saw a man.

"Let's fight!" the man shrieked, lunging at him with a spear. The Prince stepped out of the way and the man died by impaling himself on a small loose floor tile. Shrugging, the Prince climbed up a ladder, wondering angrily why the game was giving him instructions on how to do this (he wondered this between falling down the ladder due to stupidity).

After climbing up the ladder, yet another enemy arrived. This man, who had been walking a few feet over the Prince when he fought the last enemy, was evidently not intelligent enough to climb down a ladder and help his unarmored, inexperienced friend. The Prince defeated him as well, inexplicably shoving his hand toward a dagger sheath on his belt when there was actually nothing to put there.

"Many men will die in this battle," the Prince said gloomily, moving onward and speaking while drinking water. "But I will not do anything as foolish as killing my enemies, even though that's the whole reason we're fighting the Mahandkerchief. No, I will get glory by getting us shiny stuff to look at. Only an idiot would think that I, the most skilled fighter in all my father's troops, would actually contribute to a battle or something so ridiculous. Hah!" Assuring himself that his logic was beyond compare, the Prince killed several men just to disprove his own point. 

Soon enough, he reached another bridge, which was of course blown up right in front of him. The Prince ran along the wall to get past it, a skill all men are capable of. After doing it twice, in slo-mo I might add, the Prince fought even more men, sheathed his crappy sword and his non-existent dagger, and climbed onto a ledge.

"I wonder why I have a dagger sheath with no dagger?" he wondered. "Perhaps I am destined to receive a very important magical dagger…" Attempting to make scary hand gestures, the Prince let go of his ledge and fell to his death. Let's try that again, shall we?

The Prince made it through the hole in the wall, finding himself in a room with many poles sticking from the ground. Enemies patrolled below. The large flaming boulder that had punched a hole in the wall and obviously gone through into the room was nowhere to be seen.

"I'll try to sneak past these guys with stealth," the Prince explained for no one's benefit. The guys heard him, as he was yelling at the top of his voice, and aimed their spears. Convinced he could make it past them, the Prince jumped for a pole, broke his leg in the simple act of taking a step forward, and fell to the floor. The spear-wielders felt sorry for him and just walked away.

The Prince convinced himself that his amazing stealth skills were to thank for the obliviousness of the guards as he made his way across the poles. He went through a doorway, which was obviously the best point to resume his story from should they be interrupted. Because a doorway is such an important landmark in his epic journey. Of course, there _was _the option of resuming his story from where he actually had to stop telling it, but he dismissed that.

The Prince ran along several walls, all with gratuitous slow-motion. He arrived in the vault of all the Maharagoo's treasures, which only contained two treasures, one of which was a knife and the other of which was a bunch of sand. "What a rich man," the Prince commented as he made it across the room. "At least I'll have a pretty blue dagger to put in my previously useless knife sheath." Making it across the room, he went back into a stone tunnel. He was then told by the game to avoid spiky poles, which he would clearly not have known without being reminded. Avoiding more obstacles, he found himself in a room with many ledges. They of course dropped off into space before he even stepped on them, so he was forced to move onto other ledges that should have been hit by the falling remains of the other ones.

"What kind of purpose would a bottomless pit with ledges on the walls serve?" he thought. "Oh well." He jumped from pole to pole with the greatest of ease, which meant eight concussions and a skull fracture. He then climbed up a statue whose hands were pointed in positions made specifically for a person to climb up them. The Prince found the Dagger of Time and grabbed it.

"What's this switch on the base?" he wondered, flicking it. The rock that had fallen right toward his head went back up into the ceiling. Delighted, the Prince messed around with time until he ran out of sand, completely unaware of how close to death he was. When he ran out of sands, he accidentally dodged the falling rock by sneezing. Laughing at his own brilliance, the Prince tossed the Dagger from one hand to another, risking one of the most valuable items on Earth.

"I wonder why the place started crumbling and falling apart as soon as I took a treasure?" the Prince asked. "Wonders never cease." Chuckling, he escaped the area, arriving back in the treasure vault area, which his father, an old guy, and many men had entered with ease.

"All my acrobatics were for nothing," scowled the Prince angrily.

"Don't worry," his father grinned as a bunch of men pulled at the Hourglass, apparently trying to knock it over. "You've gotten us honor and glory, and that's what counts."

"You promised me my share of the Mahangglider's treasures," hissed the Vizier, hacking into the handkerchief. The Prince offered him a cough drop. "I want that dagger!"

"Surely you won't deny the boy one of the two things I promised you in exchange for your invaluable help," bragged Sharaman. "After all, it's only a revolutionary item with control over time, he can keep it as a minor souvenir. You may have anything else you want, except for the other thing you want. That will be a fine gift to the Sultan, even though it doesn't serve any practical purpose to anyone without one of three magical items."

The Vizier nervously fingered his staff. Hiding upstairs, Farah was eavesdropping, holding her medallion.

"We'll also have to keep some women and animals for the Sultan," Sharaman said, while the Vizier coughed with rage. "Let it be known that King Sharaman is so merciful in battle that instead of killing women and animals, he gives them away freely to be locked in cages or be sexually assaulted for the rest of their lives. Did I mention I was merciful?" The Prince looked at his father with admiration, his eyes shining with love for his father's wisdom. Farah snorted in disgust, but this tipped off a soldier, who captured her.

Following this, the long procession of animals, slave girls, soldiers and royalty walked through the desert. Farah glared at the Prince the whole time, as if he was responsible for her situation. They finally reached the Sultan's very diverse and enormous palace, which would crumble and fall apart in a very gymnastically convenient manner when sand blew through it.

"My friend," the fat stereotypical Sultan grinned. He and Sharaman awkwardly embraced. Uninterested by such mundane matters as tigers and hot women, the Sultan turned toward a bunch of glowing sand. "Why does it glow?"

"Not because it's magical or anything," the Vizier assured him. "The hourglass contains amazing wonders, which of course will happen because of freaking sand. But only the one with the Dagger can open it. Perhaps the Prince…?"

The Prince glared at the Vizier as if he had been mortally insulted and walked up to the hourglass. Farah, who somehow knew what would happen, screamed "NO!"

The Prince looked at the slave girl as he stuck the Dagger in. Sand shot everywhere and turned everyone into zombies, for some reason. The Vizier, unaffected, walked toward the Prince.

"Give me the Dagger and I can undo what you've done!" the Vizier hissed. This was obviously the wisest thing to do.

"I saw my father turn to sand!" shrieked the Prince by way of explanation, running away like a little girl. He arrived in the reception hall, which for some reason the Sultan hadn't received them in even though it was obviously intended for that. Some of the people, who had been in the throne room when the Sands were unleashed but had not been affected even though others had, fled through an evacuation door. Unable to attack them, the very corny-looking sand zombies went for the Prince. Farah stayed behind to coach him, even though her life was in danger.

The Prince, knowing what to do, sucked their Sands out with the Dagger of Time. Even though he was horrified by what he had just seen, he fought with skill. He killed 11 enemies, sucking them up with the Dagger with counter moves. Then he just sliced at the last one until he fell over.

"Prince, use the dagger!" screeched Farah, even though it was obvious that he already knew it was necessary. The Prince did it, glaring at her after all the enemies were dead. She looked at him until the door began to cave in, running away. A big pillar of sand showed up and, knowing how safe magical quantities of sand were after he'd seen them turn people into gruesome zombies, the Prince stepped into it.

Instantly he was barraged by odd images, none of which had happened yet. Very interestingly, they only taught him how to move through a room instead of something useful like how he should get back at the Vizier or how to find Farah. Actually, that second one would be terrible information to know.

The Prince woke up, feeling drained and exhausted. "Whoa… that was some party last night… oh, I guess it wasn't." Sighing, he ducked through the highly reliable evacuation barricade, which had come open because several rocks had fallen on it. The Prince tried to follow Farah, for whatever reason, but was unable to reach her. He had to take a short cut through the guest rooms.

"This is where my father and I were going to spend the night? What a dump," snorted the Prince wrathfully, glancing with disdain at the many priceless works of art, buffet tables, comfortable beds and serving women filling the area. "Good thing I didn't have to stay in this wretched hovel." He got to ground level, seeing yet another magical quantity of sand, which he sucked into his Dagger because it was obviously safe.

Having nothing to do, the Prince hung around a bit. "I'm bored," he complained. He then found a bar and began to swing on it. By pure chance he let go at the right time and caught onto the next bar. The game immediately told him that he had to do that.

"Why does this thing teach me stuff I already know?" he complained, even though he had done it by sheer luck. He got out of the guest rooms and saw Farah. At the sight of him, she grabbed at a walkie-talkie.

"Now," she instructed, and a landslide fell between him and her. Furious, the Prince stamped his feet and had a childish temper tantrum. "Curses! I can't deal with this horrible transformation of life into death, heaven into hell, without a babe for physical comfort! It's outrageous I tells ya!" Still angry, the Prince went a little further until he found a fountain. Not a life-one, just a regular one.

"How does water make me stronger?" he thought while sipping it. "Always protect against dehydration, kiddies!" He gave a cheesy grin and a thumbs-up to emphasize his point. A group of sand zombie children conferred amongst themselves, uneasy about this imbecilic stranger, then promptly pushed him off a ledge to his death. Luckily he grabbed a bar as he fell and dropped down into another guest room.

"I don't _wanna _have to fight again!" he cried as yet more enemies showed up. He was forced to, though, and made short work of the enemies. "Filthy sport, don't know why people do it," he sniffed as he exited the room.

"It's not a sport, people do it to survive," Farah snapped. The Prince, who was currently spinning around a bar, let go out of surprise when his head was directly over the bar. He banged his head on it and fell to his doom, giving Farah time to escape. The Prince rewound time and tried again, but she escaped anyway.

"Darn, foiled again!" he snapped, exiting the room and finding another sand whirly beam of light. He entered it.

"Whoa, lots of jumps… JUMP! JUMP!" he shrieked psychotically. "Whoa, what an amazing fight move that would obviously be highly possible in real life!" For some reason, he considered this time the best point to start telling the story from, even though he had just gone from a guest bedroom to a hallway. Unconcerned about this implausibility, he broke more furniture to get through.

"I wonder why I can run up and across walls, jump incredible distances, take unbearable amounts of bodily harm, have great balance, yet I am unable to make a small jump over a pile of furniture?" he thought, getting angrier at this thought by the second. "And why can't I open any doors?"

Outraged, he went on a bit until he found himself in a very odd fairy fountain place, which was not at all like Legend of Zelda in any way. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," the Prince breathed dreamily as he made his way to the fountain.

"Oh, let's drink from the unspecified, unlabeled pool of water that has been sitting in a dusty cavern for thousands of years," he smiled happily, partaking of the liquid. Next thing he knew he woke up, feeling better than ever.

"I sure do keep waking up under suspicious circumstances… I've been _drugged!" _he gasped horribly. Forgetting the rest of his theory due to dumbness, the Prince plowed on through the palace until Farah grabbed him.

"Hey, I know my manly physique is very attractive, but-" the Prince started to say.

"Give me the Dagger!" whined Farah in her horrible voice, probably aware that this would cause the Prince to turn into a sand creature. Like she would care.

"Will not!"

"Will too!"

"Will not!"

"Will too!"

"Shut up! Why didn't you turn into sand?" snarled the Prince. "Your medallion?"

"Yes! I am the Maharinklevinkle's daughter!"

"You can't even say your father's own name?" scoffed the Prince.

"Shut up! Now give me the Dagger so I can undo what you have done!" Farah whimpered.

"I saw my father turn to sand!" shrieked the Prince as a lame excuse.

"Yes, and you will share his fate unless you give me the Dagger!" Farah shrieked, flapping her arms hysterically.

"I thought that if I didn't have the Dagger, I would turn into a sand creature. Wouldn't I share his fate _if _I gave you the Dagger?" the Prince asked skeptically.

"N-never mind that!" she said, frightened. "Just give it to me!"

"I trust no one!" the Prince shouted heroically. "Your Vizier said the same thing! From now on, I don't trust anybody, even though what you're suggesting is obviously the best way to go."

Suddenly evil sand beetles appeared. The Prince laughed and laughed until he turned blue, then fought them off. Farah, who could not help him kill some sand beetles even though later she would willingly do the same thing later, crawled away like a coward through a hole. This hole was large enough for a sand beetle to crawl through and attack her, so apparently she expected the Prince to rescue her.

"Go to the reception hall and wait for me there!" the Prince ordered, fighting off the beetles. After drinking from a fountain that was shaped more like a bathtub, the Prince moved on a little bit until he reached the outside.

"What the-" He could see some birds carrying the hourglass, although they were obviously not strong enough and there was nothing for them to hold onto, the whole thing being smooth glass. "I did not understand what I had just seen," the Prince whispered, although it was obvious what was going on and only a fool would not realize what was happening, "but I knew that those creatures had a master. I will attribute this to an omen instead of understanding that there is no way that a bunch of birds would carry around an enormous hourglass unless someone made them." Satisfied with his ingenious theory, the Prince got back to the room and went slowly down it.

"Now this is a nice guest room," he scowled. "Wonder why I didn't get it? And I wonder why all the cabinets where clothes and crap might go are across the room from the bed?" The Prince decided not to waste time. He jumped down from the top level, fell 120 feet, and landed on the bed, which cushioned his fall. The Prince merrily bounced until he had to fight again.

"Ooh, hot new sand babes!" the Prince giggled. Their catlike screeches got on his nerves, however, and after beating them quickly he went into the sand vortex.

He woke up from it, feeling exhausted even though all he had done was see interconnected images from the future. "If this is what I will see in the future, why isn't it through my eyes? I don't see my body when I'm moving, so why are these flash-forwards… never mind."

He pushed aside a cabinet to go on, eventually finding the easiest puzzle ever- a switch that needed to be pressed down with a box to put on it only two feet away. Of course the Prince tried to press the switch and run for the door before it closed, 176 times, before he caught on.

Getting through, he found himself in an odd room with a circular platform. Axles stuck out here and there from a complex grid.

"Oh, thank god!" cried a guard with an inexplicable Cockney type accent. "I was afraid you were one of them! Sand zombies could obviously make it this far through such perilous puzzles! Now, can you help me set the palace's defense system?"

"How did you survive?" the Prince asked as the guard babbled.

"I have the Magic Slippers of Jerusalem that protect me," the guard sneered. "How did you?"

"Er… same," the Prince muttered.

"Good! Now that you know how to do this unnecessarily complicated procedure, I'll-"

"Why don't you just have a switch that puts up the palace's defense system?" the Prince asked.

"Because then an enemy could figure it out easily and press the switch!" the guard cried.

"Why would an enemy try to make the palace more dangerous? He's the one who'd be trying to break in," the Prince growled.

"SHUT UP!" the guard cried, dying mysteriously. Apparently he had not had any magical item, despite his previous assertions. Wondering why the puzzle had anything to do with the stages of the moon, the Prince activated the defense system all by himself, not knowing that it would make his life even worse than Farah could make it in three life times. He found another save point and woke up much later, stretching.

"You think I'm mad," said the Prince in voice-over. "But I'm not. You see, I am not insane because I think what I'm saying is true. There you go. Anyway, these odd visions assaulted me whenever I stepped into one of those sand vortexes. Very unusual! Almost as unusual as the fact that the sand vortex somehow knows that I'm trying to get to the Vizier. Why else would it show me that stuff if it could be irrelevant?"

He made it past the palace's defense system, getting very angry as it continually hurt him. The Prince soon reached a lever.

"The palace's defense system was very, very logical," the Prince said. "You see, there were levers that would open doors, yet trigger traps. So, instead of there being no chance that an enemy could get through, there is a very small chance instead. As I said, ingenious design." He got past all the traps, wondering why there weren't better traps than very predictably moving spiked poles.

The Prince escaped the palace and found himself in a courtyard. It was obvious proof of the Sultan's wealth, even though all it contained was a bunch of palm trees and a magic stone block that moves up and down.

"I wonder why they made the switch six feet high on the wall and three feet wide, where nobody could feasibly reach it?" the Prince thought. He soon learned a new move to fight enemies. The Prince could push off walls and stab them, or push off and vault. The only difference was that some enemies were stupid enough to fall for this new trick and others weren't.

"I guess none of them passed their SATs," the Prince scowled, climbing up the stone block and leaving the stupid enemies behind.

"What's an SAT?" one called. His partner, disgusted, smacked him over the head. For some reason, even though they were capable of teleporting, none of them came after him. The Prince, who was tired of save points every three seconds, did not take the one down below.

He made it past some more kind of stupid booby traps, including circular saw blades mounted on the walls, as if the designers had actually thought that anyone would somehow go along the walls to move. It was also very convenient that the wall blades were mounted a random piece of wall, yet the ground by that piece of wall conveniently was one of the pieces to fall and become rubble.

"How _convenient," _mused the Prince, unaware of how often the architectural instability of the palace would come to his aid and his down fall. He found a new life fountain, hearing odd music.

"I feel like I've been here before," said the Prince, not actually referring to the life fountain area but to the entire palace. "Wait, I have been here before," he said, coincidentally just as he entered magic fairy fountain land. His endurance was raised by it, and he acted amazed by it as usual.

The Prince avoided more traps, and was introduced to the newest one; a post with a knife attached to it that whirled around in a circle. He chuckled, thinking of how stupid a trap it was. Of course, he was nearly killed by it. He made his way to the reception hall, finding Farah there fighting monsters.

"Help meeeeeeeee!" she cried in her most annoying falsetto. The Prince deliberated, then ran down a wall, a skill that would have been very useful should it be possible in game play. The Prince landed, ready to fight. He then saw someone he recognized.

"Chef Boyardee!" he cried sadly at the hilarious-looking monster. It was actually his father, though. Apparently, part of the transformation to a sand monster involved getting mismatched eyes. The Prince felt confident about fighting, but he was soon fighting for his life with only one point of health remaining.

Meanwhile, Farah got a tiny chip on a fingernail, as none of the sand creatures were even remotely interested in her. "Help me," she gasped, moaning in agony at the mortally injured Prince. The Prince got so angry at hearing this that he slaughtered all the creatures in a frenzy of killing.

After the fight, the Prince ripped off his sleeve, implying that he wanted Farah to kiss his wound. She did not, trying to comfort him with words instead.

"I know what it is like to lose a father," she said.

"So? You don't give a care about your father," he spat. "You can't even get his name right! No one can! But that wasn't my father! My father was kind and merciful and not at all cruel to women and animals! That wasn't him!"

"Yes it was…"

"No, it was Chef Boyardee," the Prince said confidently, seeing a sand vortex. He ran for it.

"No, stop!" she shrieked furiously as he ran to it. It was not clear why she was so worried.

When the Prince woke up, Farah was just now bending down to steal his dagger, having taken many hours to physically walk over to him and kneel over. He grabbed it back from her.

"So, this is the thanks I get for saving your life," he growled.

"Listen! We have to stop the Vizier, or the sands will spread! They will consume everything!" she squawked.

"Oh, fine," the Prince snarled. "Come with me if you must, but I move fast, so you better keep up." He began running in place for some reason, stopping guiltily at her furious stare. "It's at the top of the Tower of Dawn."

"How do you know that?" she asked curiously.

"I just know," the Prince said mysteriously, "in ways that have nothing to do with seeing two birds physically carrying it there. It must be the Dagger tipping me off."

"You'll need me," Farah told him, even though it had already been established that she was going with him. The Prince, in response, threw her through a window, rewinding time when he realized that this would ruin his chances of scoring. The hole in the window was still there, and they hopped out through it.

"If this was the right way to go, why didn't I just cut my way through when I was here before?" the Prince thought wrathfully. While he pondered, Farah got far ahead of him.

"And you were worried about me keeping up," she said smugly, as if she was proud of outrunning a halfwit that was standing still while she dashed ahead of him. The Prince sneered in lieu of an insult, hopping down to defeat some enemies.

"I'll cover you," Farah said, pulling out her bow and indicating it to make the Prince stop thinking in the gutter.

"Please don't, what if you hit me?" the Prince asked, hopping down.

"Then everything will go according to plan," Farah muttered, firing arrows. Very mysteriously, they all hit the Prince the second before he could guard an attack from an enemy. Soon he was almost dead.

"Careful, Farah, you almost MISSED me!" he spat, rallying and killing all the enemies. He drank some water and went into a sand vortex.

When he woke up, Farah was looking around wearily.

"I don't like you going into that sand vortex, even though it gives us invaluable clues to our surroundings," she said. "What if the sand creatures came back?"

"First of all," he snarled at her, "they can't come back, because the area we're in is separated from the palace by huge walls and large gaps. Secondly, if they did show up, you could jump one of those gaps and get where they couldn't-"

"What?" said Farah, her doe eyes blinking.

"I saw my father turn to sand!" screamed the Prince hysterically, and she let the matter drop. As he moved ahead, he dropped 5 feet.

"Are you all right?" shrieked Farah, worried.

"Stay there! I'll come to you!" said the Prince for what would certainly not be the last time. He swung along some flags, because it was obviously necessary to have three of the exact same flag on one wall.

"She tried to steal my Dagger!" he cried, mortally insulted. "After I save her life! How thoughtless of her, to leave an arrogant dunderhead to die and take the only way to make everything the way it was before, especially since I had no clue how to! How evil-spirited of her! And why am I risking my life for her, even though I haven't actually had any choice but to do that so far, usually by accident? Good question! Why am I talking out loud to myself instead of thinking? Why am I referring to my own thoughts as 'good questions?' Good question!" The Prince found a crank, which he turned in order to open a door.

"What a foolproof locking mechanism," he said sarcastically.

"Here I am!" said Farah from far away, not having moved in the slightest. Immediately enemies began to pour out of the door, which Farah made no move against despite the fact that she was out of their attack range while being close enough to hit them. Scowling, the Prince fought them off and went into a vortex.

After he got out, the Prince decided to perform an experiment. "I know! What if I messed with something so that the event wouldn't go _exactly _the way it did in my odd vision? I would be able to change the future!" He put out all the torches in the room and then decided to get through it, just so what happened would be in the dark rather than in the light. However, as he couldn't see, the Prince concussed himself and was forced to rewind time til the torches were relit.

"You cannot change your fate," said a spooky voice. The Prince whirled around, but saw nothing except for a rack of weapons and a huge, menacing Dahaka with black tentacles, hiding behind a pillar. As the weapons rack was clearly responsible, the Prince smashed it into smithereens before continuing. He got one more life fountain before finding Farah again in a tunnel-like area.

"I should show her the life fountains, just to prove to her that I'm not mad," he thought. "She doesn't think I'm mad, though… I know! Maybe, if I perform a grand rewind, she might think I'm mad when I tell her this story!" The scary part was that he didn't say this in the present, but in the voice-over as the story he was telling to Farah.

"There you are," Farah said, as if this information was new to him. "Let's not get separated again, shall we?"

"Why not?" asked the Prince rudely.

"Because I might have gotten _lost! _ Or eaten!" she wailed petulantly, banging her fists on the floor and screaming. The Prince hurled her at a wall out of sheer annoyance, but she slid through a microscopic crack in it and into a secret chamber.

"Why is the chamber inaccessible EXCEPT by a tiny crack?" she wondered. "It's as if that's the way you're supposed to go!"

"You're a skinny little thing," the Prince drooled lasciviously. "At least she does something well," he noted, although it had already been established that she could go through cracks.

"It's so quiet out there," she murmured. "Terrible, but also… beautiful."

"Fascinating, let's change the subject," the Prince was quick to reply, darting through the just opened door. Farah, fuming at his lack of manners, entered the room after him.

They were in a giant warehouse, which had blue lighting even though the only lights were very obvious orange flames. So maybe the walls were painted blue. After the Prince and Farah painted each others nails and discussed how blue was so out this season and that the designers should really have gone with some nice green pastels with pink inlay, they decided to go.

"You know I can't do that," she objected as he ran along a wall. The Prince gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to tell her that nobody actually could do it other than him and that her revelation was completely uninformative.

They slowly got down the warehouse, which eventually degenerated into each of them running across a wooden beam, pulling a lever, and waiting for the other one to go. Farah would announce things like "Your turn now!" or "Now I'll go!" which served no purpose other than to spark the Prince into horrific fits and convulsions bordering on epilepsy. He twitched as much as the computer-animated Scooby Doo, or the characters in the animated Lord of the Rings.

When they were done, the Prince dropped down and did all the work killing the enemies while Farah, a woman, shot from a safe distance.

"And women are the disadvantaged class," sneered the Prince as he saved at the vortex before exiting.

The Prince saved again, after doing nothing but walking through a hall and fighting four guys. Obviously that was such strenuous work that he simply HAD to save or hours of game play would be lost.

"Be careful!" Farah whimpered. "Last time you were unconscious for over one minute!"

"Such a long period of time," sneered the Prince once he woke up.

"Where are we, by the way?" Farah asked.

"This was the Sultan's zoo!" gasped the Prince with awe.

"It has nothing but a few palm trees, five or six cages, and an enormous bird cage," Farah observed. "And why does the bird cage have ladders? Wouldn't the overweight Sultan rather use stairs? And the ladders obviously aren't for the birds…"

"SHUT UP!" shrieked the Prince. "His bird cage was one of the wonders of the world, even though those are already established!" A bunch of sand birds showed up, meaning maybe about 5. The Prince killed them.

"So this wonder of the world contained only five big goose-like birds?" Farah wondered. As the Prince began to whine about how he wished he could have seen such an amazing sight under better circumstances, Farah crawled through an ongoing crack through the cages.

"Why is every single crack in the whole game either a hugely wide mouse hole or a vertical split in the wall?" she wondered.

"Game! She thinks this is a game," the Prince muttered, shaking his head at the stupidity of women. "Next thing you know, she'll be saying that one day it'll all be made into a story on some kind of Internet web site! Preposterous, I say." The Prince ascended through the birdcage, turning a crank when he reached the top. This just opened a door for Farah, making everything easier for her while she waited around.

The Prince, after some more platforming and bird killing, found a new sand vortex, in which he saw himself dying.

"This actually never happens, so why does it show it?" he wondered. "Maybe the sand vortexes _hate _me! Everyone hates me! Oh, woe is me! All my friends and family and very 'merciful' fathers have turned into sand zombies and my only companion is a girl named Farah and a multiple-personality disorder that makes me talk to myself and will manifest itself physically in later adventures of mine! And now I'm so depressed that I refer to various segments of my life as 'adventures!' Oh, woe is me!" The Prince scribbled in an emo diary for a few fleeting moments.

After this, he and Farah entered through a door, into a tunnel filled with hay and dirt. Apparently it had been some sort of barn for some of the zoo creatures. As they walked, the Prince continued to voice-over.

"If you have believed the rest of my tale until now, which you didn't because you thought I was made, maybe you'll also believe you when I say that I felt oddly drawn to the chick on my side. Oh wait; you wouldn't believe that because she's an incessantly shrieking harpy who couldn't fight worth beans and only acts affectionate or caring in any way so she can manipulate people. But she was a loyal companion, if you would describe loyalty as shooting me whenever possible and only helping me when she needed my help for something else. And I was glad to have a companion that, like me, was flesh and blood. I was mostly interested in the flesh, though," he added, licking his lips.

They went further down, and the Prince killed some sand beetles and went through a door. It shut right behind him, with no way to re-open it. Except, of course, the way that Farah had direct control over.

"Now how do I get through?" she whined.

"Why don't you crawl through a crack or something?" snarled the Prince, as if she would not have already done this if there had been one. Apparently, however, she was just waiting for him to have to tell her everything. The Prince made it past some humorously inadequate traps before finding Farah. As they went out, he jumped over the big gap in the bridge, which is where he fell in his sand vortex vision. Nothing happened to him. He then saved at the new sand vortex.

They made their way through the remainder of the zoo area, the Prince fuming as he was forced to kill all the birds himself. "You'd think she's not capable of the simplest of tasks!" he declared firmly as Farah, horrified, pleaded desperately for assistance in walking forward in a straight line.

They got to a bath area, which basically meant a bunch of ankle-depth water on the floor everywhere. It was more like the tiniest of children's swimming pools, plus the two sections of the bath area were divided by a gate with holes in it, which was easily seen through. Farah, being a cowardly woman, tried to hide behind the see-through gate while the Prince fought everyone.

Finally the Prince saved again. This time Farah finally realized that something that had been tested many times to no bad effect would not harm the Prince, as if she would have cared. When he woke up from his sand-induced coma, the Prince looked around.

"There's a ladder on that wall," he observed, trying to get onto it. But apparently, since his feet were wet, he couldn't run up walls. There was also the possibility of bending one leg while standing on the other, putting it on the bottom ladder rung, and climbing like so, but the Prince dismissed it.

"It'll obviously work, though," objected Farah.

"I saw my father turn to sand!" screamed the Prince broken-heartedly, and that was the end of that.

The Prince and Farah separately made it to a room that was slightly more bath-like. For some reason there were no towels, benches, saunas, or anything other than water in pits in the floor, though. They fought off some enemies.

"There's something glowing up there," said Farah. "I saw it from the ledge."

The Prince looked up and was incapable of seeing it, despite Farah being able to see only about five feet higher than him when she was on the ledge. Taking the Princess' word for it very foolishly (she was actually lying just to get his attention), the Prince drained the room.

"Splendid," she exclaimed thunderously as the water swirled out everywhere. "No one would have ever designed such a foolproof system as this. Why, to have built a switch just a few inches from an object that could easily push it, much to the inconvenience of anyone bathing? That's just-"

"Um, Farah, I would really appreciate it if you never opened your mouth or made gestures to communicate again, or indicated that you existed in any way, shape or form," the Prince growled, fingering the blade of his sword. Snorting in her winded bull-like way out of outrage and anger, Farah popped a squat on the floor.

Accomplishing an amazing puzzle, the Prince managed to lift a tiny wooden trapdoor that he could push a block through. Farah did not point out that he could have broken it in by kicking it. The Prince used this block to climb onto that ladder earlier, and eventually he reached the area that Farah said was glowing.

"Yeah, basically that's just a huge window," the Prince snarled. He found a new sword lying on a desk, which none of the unarmed bathers had bothered to defend themselves with when the sand zombies tried to attack. Very conveniently, it was better than his current sword, so the Prince took the new sword and hurled the old one down at Farah. Due to stupendous inaccuracy, it stuck in a wooden door. With his new sword, the Prince hit the door and it blasted open.

"See, this sort of thing wouldn't happen if you knew how to open door," lectured Farah. 

"What did I tell you about proving your existence?" raged the Prince, going berserker crazy and stomping right into a life fountain while completely oblivious to what was going on. When he reached Farah, he broke down another wall, which they went through.

"That's not the same sword you had before," said Captain Obvious, I mean Farah. The Prince began to slather at the jaws and emit substantial amounts of steam from his ears; incensed that Farah was still alive. However, she quickly complimented him on his strength, and the Prince's head swelled so much that his anger disappeared.

"Where are we?" gasped Farah, although nothing had indicated that they were in any different a location than the one they had just left.

"When I was a lad," the Prince said, "I heard a tale that the palace was built on the ruins of an even older one. Despite this being the most economically useful way to preserve real estate, I thought it was just a story. And now I was right!" The Prince pulled a table away from the wall so Farah could go through the crack that the table had blocked. Sniggering, the Prince moved the table so it blocked her way out if there was a dead end. Sadly, he couldn't get anywhere without moving the table, and Farah made it out anyway, so he did what he had to do to get through the useless room.

They met back up in an odd room with a crank. Turning it, the Prince discovered the original Prince of Persia game, which he enjoyed immensely due to the lack of Farah. But when he died, the Prince hated the game so much that he tried to pass a law banning the game. It did not work, as the only people they could find to decide were a bunch of sand zombies, who tried to kill the Prince, and Farah, who took several second before trying the same.

Eventually they reached a switch, which was guarded by the unconquerable defense of several barrels in front of it. The Prince stepped on the switch, which opened a door, and Farah rushed in with no regard to safety or the fact that she was incapable of actually defeating any creatures.

"Wait for me!" shouted the Prince. Although it was urgent and he knew Farah would die without instant action, he stopped to comment on the soldier's mess hall they now stood in. When Farah shrieked at him, they fought off all the sand zombies.

As the Prince reached the top, he looked out a massive hole in the wall that had no real way of coming out unless something had physically knocked it out. Maybe it was a picture window. Even though less than an hour ago it had been the dead of night, it was now morning. The Prince found his sleeve overly baggy and tore it off. Farah swooned.

The Prince, who now wore a T-shirt, and Farah, worked together to bring down a drawbridge. "You did it!" cheered Farah, even though she was not within sight of the drawbridge. Apparently there was a tourist car, just because it was so popular. Farah madly fired arrows at the bad guys, who revived in seconds, while the Prince spoke into a megaphone.

"Chkkk… please keep arms, legs and bows inside the car at all times," he narrated, glaring at the mortally endangered Farah. "This is the Sultan of Azad's Memorial Drawbridge, constructed in 1035…"

Eventually they reached another bridge. This one was full of birds. "Keep running! Don't turn back!" shrieked the Prince, as if Farah was incapable of dealing with birds. She shot all of them and proceeded across at a leisurely rate. Fuming, the Prince ran across after her. The second before he stepped off, a small canary alighted upon the bridge. This monumental increase in weight caused the entire bridge to collapse in slow motion.

"The switch is broken, you can't come in!" Farah shouted, although the switch was obviously fully functional. The Prince took a small detour, but even there he couldn't get it, even though it would have been exceptionally easy to, especially since he had the Dagger and could rewind if it really was impossible.

"I know where I am," Farah said, who had never set foot in the palace before in her life. "Let's meet up at the baths."

"I thought we were just at the baths," objected the Prince.

"I mean a different baths," Farah clarified, even though where they would later meet was not the baths. "Can you get there?"

"Of course," the Prince muttered truculently. "It should be easy."

"Good, I'll meet you there," Farah said, despite her earlier desire to not be separated.

"I'll just ask the first sand creature I meet," fumed the Prince as he went on, considering it unreasonable to know where the baths were even though Farah somehow knew. "Thank you, don't mention it, I used to be a bath attendant back when I was a lad," he mocked in sand zombie tones, which were of course illegible. It was obviously out of the question that he could have asked Farah where the baths were.

"She acts like I'm a servant! Giving me orders like 'be careful' and 'don't kill yourself' and such unreasonable demands! You have to show women you're in charge or they'll walk all over you," concluded the not-at-all sexist Prince. "I felt sorry for her, but it stops now! As soon as I find her, that's the new policy."

For some reason, balance beams were just being introduced into the game. The Prince made it past this uninteresting part and into a waterfall like area. For some reason, he started to talk like he was Farah and describe the baths to himself.

"…with lovely water," he concluded. "Why am I talking to myself?"

"So people can hear you instead of just guessing what you're thinking," a nearby sand beetle said, but of course it came out as a number of clicks and buzzes. Descending the waterfall area in a preposterous manner, he clung onto very fortunately placed stalactites and jumped from them. They were evenly spaced, oddly enough, and all exactly the same size.

The Prince soon reached a sewer like area, which was of course filled with balance beams that would not realistically be needed for any purpose. Here the Prince met some bats.

"Let me get this straight," he growled as he fought them off. "In an entire palace, the only animals that exist are beetles, birds and bats? What about the animals in the sultan's zoo? What about the horses we rode here?"

Ropes were also introduced to the Prince. They would only be used in perhaps three puzzles in the entire game… I mean adventure. The Prince found another life fountain and climbed up the rope of a well, which gathered all its water from a hygienic sewer. (I know it's a reservoir technically, but why would a reservoir only have a few inches of water in it?)

The Prince reached the top, finding some enemies to defeat.

"Why are there only eight kinds of enemies?" he wondered. "There's the short fat ones with clubs, the old men with sickles, the tall fat guys with hammers, the regular guys with spears, the stocky guys that swing sausage links around, and the tall muscular guys with swords. Is it a coincidence that each build of guy was holding the exact same weapon when they were afflicted by the Sands of-"

At this point, one of the sand monsters let out an inarticulate well and leaped at the Prince. The Prince casually sidestepped and allowed said monster to hurtle down the well. Finding this immensely amusing, the Prince did this to all the others and went on.

The Prince ran around inarticulately until he could hear Farah basically getting herself killed in an area that in no way resembled the baths. Fuming, he reached her and performed a massive sand freeze on all the enemies. Instead of killing them, he scribbled on their faces and sat there laughing. When they unfroze, they were all furious and attacked with renewed hatred and rage. The Prince effortlessly killed them all, as he was very athletic and had large muscles. The Prince found a save point and saved.

Waking up, he heard Farah stroking his head. "Don't leave me, my love," she whispered throatily, even though there was nothing to suggest that he was going to. Except for his hatred of her, of course. Apparently she thought that _this _save point, despite being identical to all the others, would cause the Prince to die.

"What did you call me?" screamed the Prince frenziedly, leaping to his feet.

"It doesn't matter," Farah said, blushing. "The point… the point is, I know how we can reach the Tower of Dawn."

"I knew that from the beginning," complained the Prince. "Talk about a not-subtle change of subject. But you're right. I wasn't remembering the hourglass. But this time stay near me and don't get separated." Despite her view of the Prince as her love, Farah did not appear happy with these demands.

They moved on until they reached a large library with mirrors everywhere. There were also many sand creatures.

"We went out the wrong side of the baths," concluded Farah, somehow having an amazing architectural knowledge of the palace. "We'll have to go back through the palace, in order to pad the length of the game." She said all this while the Prince battled for his life.

The Prince began to move the mirrors so that their light reflected all over the room. Eventually they hit a symbol on a weird stone block, making a hugely weird assortment of ledges and blocks rise from the top of it. This would have no useful purpose to anyone with balance less than the Prince, and it wasn't decorative either. So why it was there was very mysterious.

Climbing up, the Prince found more mirrors to point around. The Prince got a life fountain and then started getting to each mirror through very elaborate gymnastics, causing extremely secure-looking balance beams to crumble into fine powder at the lightest touch.

"Listen to this," said Farah in some sort of desperate attempt to seduce the Prince by reading him a romance novel. "Of what use is reason against the power of love? Love is life, so if you want to live, dine in love. Dine in love if you want to stay alive."

The Prince noticed that the area in which Farah was standing had no books in it. This led him to believe that she was reading him a crappy poem she had invented. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked very obliviously.

"I love you!" she cried. "Ever since we met in the desert, I adored you! The rippled physique… the strong, graceful nature of your spirit… your handsome features… I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Prince!"

"If you want to be useful, try reading a book that will tell us how to get out of here!" yelled the Prince, utterly clueless as to what her proclamations of undying infatuation meant. Farah was furious, so she actually took his advice and tried to do that.

Of course, Farah only made him even more furious with her incessant harpy yelps. "Try to hit the symbol on the wall! That'll get us out of here!" she squealed.

"What did I tell you about broadcasting your status as being alive?" the Prince shrieked insanely. He went into such spasms of aggression that he ended up pitching all the mirrors over the edge of their platforms, where they shattered. Unconcerned, he took a tiny chip of glass from one of the mirrors, held it under the beam of light, and aimed it at the symbol on the wall. He did this until a door far below opened to reveal a new sword and a crank.

"Why is this place called the Hall of Learning instead of a library?" he seethed impassionedly as he seized the new sword. He then jammed the old sword into a thick novel that he saw lying around, ruining it. Coincidentally, this book was a walkthrough to the game, which could have aided him, but the Prince was too obtuse to realize any such thing. They escaped to the observatory, where some sand creatures were waiting.

Farah's eyes went soft. "Father!" she cried, and embraced one of them who looked exactly like all the others. As he fought, the Prince sneered at her unoriginal looking father. At least _his _dad resembled Chef Boyardee instead of being just like everyone else…

The Maharockybalboa and his daughter embraced, which meant that he tried to savagely rip out her entrails with his spear while she sobbed with joy. The Prince killed all the others and watched with barely concealed jubilance as they "hugged." Getting immensely bored, the Prince went into the sand vortex. He saw a vision in which he died at the nonexistent hand of booby traps. This would of course not happen, and if it did he could either rewind or get a game over and start again.

When he woke up, Farah and her father had not moved. Angry, the Prince sidled over to them, inconspicuously sucked all the sand out of the Maharitzhotels, and put himself in Farah's arms instead.

"I hate to break up your… _touching _(sneer) family reunion," he sneered, "but we've got to get to the Tower of Dawn."

"We still have 40 percent of the game left!" Farah protested.

"Yes, but, you see, due to intense mathematical calculations, I… er… I… shut up and crawl through a crack while I mutter loudly about how much I love you," the Prince grimaced. Sighing, Farah flounced indignantly away.

The Prince began to ascend the massive observatory, which was used by stargazers and astronomers. (Man, _forget _astrology!) Since the Sultan of Azad was far too cheap to cut a hole in the roof, he substituted the planets with fake fiberglass models and hoped no one would know the difference. Of course, everyone did, seeing as they were much too big to be all the way in space, and many of them were the same color.

The Prince continued to solve the puzzles, finding poles sticking out of the planet models to swing on. How this was astronomically correct was an utter enigma. Once he opened the door, the Prince slid down several long poles at high speed, shrieking like a giddy schoolgirl at Six Flags.

When he was done, they entered a hall.

"Look, a crack!" Farah cried excitedly.

"Wait. Let's see what's up here first," the Prince said. "OK, don't take the crack," he recommended, hoping to get her murdered. She went through the crack anyway, and the Prince had to do all the death-defying work.

There was a new trap- long swords that slid along the walls. These were basically a cross between the buzz saws on the walls and the rotating knives on posts. He soon saw Farah overhead.

"Do you think I can jump it?" she asked, indicating the huge gap over a bunch of traps.

"Go ahead, try! What's the worst that can happen?" shouted the Prince, although he could have rewinded if anything were to occur. She made it, much to his eternal displeasure and rage. They soon arrived in the Hall of Learning courtyards, which were of course connected to the Observatory rather than the Hall of Learning. However, Farah was trapped behind a gate.

"I can't get through!" she said very usefully. The new creatures had long swords and were blue. The Prince killed the enormous Smurfs and platformed excessively to get Farah free.

"What are you doing?" Farah asked, although nothing had indicated that the Prince had ever known the answer to this and that she should expect him to know now.

"I'm working it out as I go," the Prince said, which was of course different from what he always did in such situations. As he went, the Prince continued to talk to himself.

"I could marry her," he mused, dismissing the old-fashioned notions of acknowledging their romantic relationship to her before arranging a lifelong commitment. "After all, she is the Mahockaloogie's daughter! Her blood is royal!" He continued to try to justify his romantic attraction to such a whining tart as he fought some sand beetles. He freed Farah and they moved on. Farah was trapped, so the Prince moved on to free her.

Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet gave way and he tumbled into a prison! Dundundun! The Prince apparently forgot to how to rewind with his dagger, and he landed in the prison. A rock, which somehow fell less fast than him even though all the falling rocks had been beneath him, hit him on the head and he was knocked out.

There was a long scene in which the entire prison was shown while out-of-place guitar music was played. "Ugh, what will be next, some sort of Godsmack song as the theme song for the next game?" grunted a sand monster.

"What's a game? And what's a theme song? And what did you just say?" asked another.

The Prince woke up. "A prison!" he gasped, somehow analyzing his surroundings after only having his eyes open for half a second. "I had never visited a prison before, because my father always got me out of any trouble. Now I was a prisoner, seeking an escape. Except I hadn't committed any crime, I wasn't in a cell or restrained in any way, the guards were evil sand monsters and I had weapons to fight the guards with. So, essentially I wasn't a prisoner in any sense of the word."

The Prince ripped off his shirt, finding it much more comfortable to go topless, and abandoned his armor for some unknown reason. "Protection against possible death is so last season," he commented, running down the walls of the jail in a very monotonous and repetitive, although stylish, pattern.

At the bottom, the sand monsters were arguing as the Prince descended. Evidently they had not noticed the many tons of rubble showering down, or the sudden excess of sunlight that had appeared.

"There's NO way he could escape, I tells ya!" said one monster. "Who cares if he's supernaturally gifted at acrobatics and there's a sequence of ladders leading to the exit? Who cares if he's defeated huge numbers of enemies at a time before? We've got this in the bag, boys. He can't escaped in any fashion or manner whatsoever!"

"What would you know about fashion or manners?" said one of the other monsters disrespectfully. "OOOOOOH, you got served, sucker!" A huge fight ensued, which the Prince avoided while chuckling at his own great wit. "Only a sheer genius would think to distract the monsters like that," he laughed, grinning from ear to ear. He entered a life fountain and came out, good as new.

"All right, I will marry her," he decided. "I'll tell her the first chance I get. Actually, I won't. But I'll marry her. It's foolish to deny what we both feel. We've made it this far! And, if she refuses, I can always kill her and rewind time."

The Prince, fighting off some more bats, found that the thought of eviscerating Farah greatly cheered him up. When he climbed out of the prison by emerging through a gazebo (which was very welcoming in that it had no floor and that there was a prison underneath it), he saw Farah, fighting some sand creatures.

The woman's eyes bulged as she witnessed his utterly bare chest, and the Prince puffed up with pride. This only drew more attention to his abs, and all the monsters were entranced as well. This only made it very easy to kill them, and the Prince was soon able to save. He had a vision in which Farah stole the Dagger.

When he woke up, Farah was stroking his head while edging her hand toward the dagger. The Prince freaked out and jumped up, brandishing the dagger.

"It's all right, it's me!" she consoled him, which was clearly supposed to be reassuring but failed immensely. "Look, the Tower of Dawn!"

"How do you know that's what it looks like?" objected the Prince.

"Because I, Prince, am smart," Farah bragged.

"No, you're not," specified the Prince moodily.

"WHAT?"

"I mean, you suck," said the Prince, which mollified Farah to the extent where she gave the Prince a kiss. All of his conspiracy-theorizing that Farah would do something as ridiculous as stealing his Dagger vanished on the spot. After all, when had _any _of those silly sand visions _ever _come true? "Outlandish," he scoffed as they entered the Tower of Dawn.

"I love it when you do that," purred Farah as the Prince entered a life fountain.

"Come with me," he said impulsively.

"No, I'd rather not extend my own endurance for physical harm, even though no bad would come of it," she said, trying to sound smart. "You go."

Raising his eyebrows, the Prince drank from the life fountain. When he returned, Farah had no idea what he was talking about. They soon entered a large, circular room that had no exits and could only get anywhere by raising or lowering.

"It's almost like some sort of elevator!" breathed Farah, entering.

"Careful," the Prince said, not particularly enthusiastic when he said that.

"Of _what?" _Farah screamed, waving a finger in his face. "You always treat me like I'm totally _helpless, _like I can't do _anything! _I've had it! Not everything is some sort of trap ready to crush us, impale us, mutilate us, or… or kill us! Why don't you let me _be _someone, instead of just what you _want, _Prince of Persia?" She glowered furiously at him.

Suddenly the room began to raise and dozens of enemies swarmed in. The Prince wisely did not say anything, although it was obviously a trap designed to kill them at this point. Farah, despite her assurances that she was not a stereotypical helpless damsel in distress, proved to be of no use whatsoever, getting herself killed at every possible opportunity. The Prince had only killed about six or so and he was already on basically no health.

"Desperate times call for making Farah angry," he concluded. He turned his head toward Farah, who was swamped with enemies, and yelled mockingly, "Not everything is some sort of trap!"

Farah's explosion of utter fury defeated every monster, and the Prince sucked up sand like there was no tomorrow. They soon reached yet another elevator, which was only large enough for the both of them so there was no danger of more fighting.

"What's your favorite fruit?" Farah asked out of the blue.

"Er… pineapples?" he tried.

"I like pomegranates," she said.

The Prince rewound time.

"What's your favorite fruit?" Farah asked out of the blue.

"Pomegranates, of course," the Prince said. She swooned, seeing how they had yet another thing in common. (I had to include a spoof on that from the third game!)

They reached a huge room covered in gold and various treasures. The Hourglass of Time stood in plain view.

"The hourglass is near, I can feel it!" announced the Prince, who was clearly blind.

After Farah was done rolling her eyes, she told him what to do. "You have to get to the top. Good thing the Vizier put the hourglass in a room with many ledges and bars in it, particularly since he knew that you could survive the release of the Sands of Time and that you are capable of getting to high areas using-"

"What did I tell you about existing?" huffed the Prince, reaching the top of the hourglass. There was a cut scene in which the Prince had turquoise eyes.

"Take the dagger and rewind time until the Sands were never released," Farah said. "I, of course, will not know that any of this happened, so if you ever have to rely on me knowing that information, your plan will be ruined."

"My father's army sacked your palace, took you as a slave, and now you want me to trust you?" the Prince growled, as if Farah had gotten him all this way just to kill him in an elaborate fashion when she could have killed him whenever he was unconscious from the sand vortexes. "You have every reason to hate me," said the Prince, although Farah had called him her love.

"What are you talking about?" Farah asked, although it was transparently obvious.

The Vizier showed up at a very inopportune moment. He spoke some gibberish and a wind of sand appeared. The Prince lost his hold of the Dagger, despite having held onto it when the Sands were unleashed earlier, and only just managed to hang onto a pillar while clinging to Farah.

"Give me the Dagger!" spat the Vizier, who had not realized that the Prince was no longer in possession of it.

"Grab the Dagger from the floor! He must not get it!" shrieked Farah. The Prince clapped his free hand to his forehead. Farah's comment made the Vizier realize that the Dagger was unprotected. Quickly, the Prince let go of the pillar, was blown away on the wind, and grabbed the Dagger by somehow changing the course of his flight. (Just a thought… would it have changed anything if the Vizier got the Dagger? The Prince only uses it for a short time afterward, and Farah never really does anything with it. To perform the huge rewind, the Prince could have just stolen it back from the Vizier.)

"I had looked into my enemy's eyes… and I had lost everything," the Prince said, although he had not actually lost anything.

They blew out a hole in the wall that had certainly not existed seconds before. Then they fell and landed in a tomb. The Prince somehow landed all right and caught Farah without breaking his arms.

"A tomb," the Prince said obviously, who had not bothered to rewind time so that this hadn't happened.

"Why did you hesitate?" shrieked Farah, although he had given his reasons very plainly. "You think you're so much smarter than everyone, but you're just like those sand soldiers. All they can do is fight and kill. You're obviously incapable of doing anything else, like insane acrobatic skills or urges to protect me or love or anything silly like that. Why didn't you trust me?"

The Prince bit back a reply, which was that he knew she was deceitful and obnoxious.

Although they had pretty good light earlier, it was suddenly pitch black.

"Where are you?" Farah asked.

"I'm right here," the Prince said.

"Hold my hand," Farah pleaded. "And don't let go."

In response, the Prince put Farah on a leash, which served the exact same purpose as holding her hand without the 12-year-old romance factor.

"If this tomb is to be ours," Farah said, "at least the Dagger will be buried with us, so that no one could ever lock away the Sands of Time, which would of course be good. Of course, the Vizier could just come down here, get the Dagger, and leave, but I will not consider that possibility. And… we are together."

The Prince, despite having probably been with much better women as he was the son of a (very merciful) King, began to breathe badly.

"I just don't like closed spaces," the Prince defended himself, despite having been in many closed spaces before and having no ill effect.

"When I was small," Farah said, "my mother taught me a secret word. She said that when I was afraid, all I had to do was speak that word and a magic pretty door would open… I've never told it to anybody."

"I can see why, it sounds like the most annoying thing I'll ever have to hear," the Prince growled.

"It was Cockleshmockle," said Farah. If the Prince had chosen to rewind time at that moment and ask her if she had a secret word, it would have gone like this:

"If only we could open a magical door to get out of here, if we had a secret word that would make one appear… have you ever heard of anything like that?"

"Um… no…"

"What about Cockleshmockle?"

"No, I never heard that, that's just weird. In fact, having secret words is just kind of stupid."

But the Prince didn't rewind time, so he would never find that out. They stumbled upon a large stone table thing in the ground. The Prince looked around for Farah, then shrugged and jumped into the stone table thing, which he imagined to be a passageway. He knocked himself unconscious. Farah, who was hiding behind him, snickered as she took the Dagger and, for some reason, his sword from him. Then, although neither of them had had any idea of where to go a minute before, she snuck off through the exit.

Meanwhile, the Prince began to dream. (In this version of the story, I am assuming it was a dream, as I doubt the Prince could ever seriously get away with it.) He went down a freaking endless staircase as some guy warbled in the background. Soon he arrived at a bath area.

"Hello?" he asked.

"Just take me in your arms! Why do you act so distant? It's so beautiful! If only we could stay here forever!" blurted Farah. The Prince walked through a door, only to reappear through another door. Eventually his small brain figured out the trick and he reached Farah.

She was bathing, obviously, and looking at him. "Although we never even embraced or kissed before now, I think we should bathe-slash-swim in the nude together."

The Prince, being unsuspecting, agreed. He laid all his weapons down and began to swim with her. Although they swam around naked together (with very convenient lighting effects) and it was implied that they had sex, their first kiss was not even shown.

When the Prince woke up, he was lying on the tomb that he had tried to jump into. A bunch of candles were lit, although Farah had no way of doing so. Maybe it was the sand monsters that had lit the candles for him… wait, the sand monsters! The Prince reached for his sword and dagger, but they were gone. Apparently, not only did Farah not trust him, she wanted him to die too. The Prince ran past the monsters, who did not do anything despite it being their only purpose to kill anyone they saw.

"Wonder why he ran away after we lit those candles for him," sniffed one of them.

As he went, the Prince saw Farah's medallion and picked it up. Apparently he was able to survive even with it being fairly close to him. "Perhaps that was why those people who were running with Farah in the very beginning at the reception hall were still human," he thought. "But that doesn't explain the guy with the palace's defense system… eh, he's just weird." He came out into an area with a bunch of mirrors and a very conveniently placed sword. "Oh no," quavered the Prince, terrified of reflective surfaces.

After retrieving the sword, he went into battle. The Prince was worried that without the Dagger, he couldn't kill the monsters. Very conveniently, however, it was strong enough to kill them! In one hit! How fortuitous for the Prince!

He saw Farah running a little bit ahead. Not bothering to wonder how she had gone past a large number of obstacles that only he could pass, he called back to her. "Farah! Come back!" he called to the treacherous girl, as if calling to her would change her mind. When she did not, he went on, getting the last life fountain of the game.

He saw her again, running across the bridge to the Tower of Dawn. "Farah! Come back!" he screamed again. "Don't use up all the Sands!"

"What does this little switch on the Dagger do? I pressed it 14 times and nothing happened!" she screamed, apparently unable to recognize that life was rewinding. The Prince, knowing that she had already used up all the sands and was too inefficient at fighting to retrieve any, went over the bridge. It spontaneously crumbled in an attempt to imply he was fat. Fuming, the Prince got to the top of the Tower. The sun was setting as his adventure ended, which was a very poor metaphor, especially when the new day was dawning only several hours ago.

When he reached the top, he saw Farah fighting more sand creatures. She was incapable of fighting them, even though she had fought them skillfully before with bows and arrows. They knocked her off the edge of a hole, and the Prince dashed over and grabbed the Dagger to keep her from falling.

"My hand hurts," he complained. None of the monsters bothered to attack the very vulnerable duo. She thought for a moment, and then said, "Don't let go!"

The Prince interpreted this as "Cockleshmockle," then screamed, "Farah, no!"

Thinking that the Prince was objecting to her claim, Farah sighed and let go, knowing that if she didn't, the Prince would anyway. However, the Prince thought that she had committed suicide for no real reason. Furious at those evil sand monsters for bringing about such a thing, he killed all of them and saved.

"Bravely I had fought until the cheap background scenery was red with blood," the Prince mourned, "but I could not bring back the dead. Unless, of course, I do what I set out to do for the entire time."

Somehow getting down to the hourglass room, the Prince wept over Farah's body just long enough for the Vizier to show up.

"Give me the Dagger and I can promise you immortality," hissed the Vizier.

"Never! If those I loved died and I was still alive… I choose death!" said the Prince, as if the Vizier could really do anything other than summon a fancy wind. Performing moves that would have made the game a lot easier, the Prince rebounded off of some walls and performed… the Grand Rewind®!

The Prince woke up back in his tent, the day before the battle. His shirt was whole for some reason, but now he had the Dagger. He snuck off to find Farah and warn her, as if she was the best person to warn.

He entered Farah's room, and just before she could ask for security, he… well, actually he didn't do anything to convince her otherwise. But she didn't. He sat down and told her a hugely long story that could have been greatly shortened by skipping all the descriptions of scenery and his disturbing dream. At this she looked shocked, but he finished the story in record time. She looked surprised when he told her that she had been willing to commit suicide for him. Of course she hadn't really, but…

Suddenly the Vizier burst in, in his way of taking advantage of people stalling. He revealed that he was a bad guy.

"Now, fight me! Or, should I say, clones that can get hurt for me, while I get killed in three hits!" the Vizier bragged. They bantered back and forth obnoxiously until the Prince killed the Vizier.

When the Vizier fell to his feet, the Prince was far away from him. "I could have been… immortal," the Vizier gasped, although when he finally did in the third… adventure, the Prince would still defeat him. Farah came out.

"So he was a traitor, then," she said. In her mind, what had happened was that the Prince had made up a hugely long story, killed the Vizier of her country and tried to stop the battle between their armies. But back to the story.

"Why did you make up such a ridiculous story? Do you think me a child?"

The Prince made out with her and rewinded time. "Yeah, it was just a story," he said, although his huge needless descriptions could have only happened in real life. Just as he was about to disappear, she asked him, "Wait! What's your name?"

He winked devilishly. "Just call me… Cockleshmockle!" And he disappeared, thinking he had just proved his entire story to be true. However, she just laughed hilariously at his bad name and lit the signal to stop the battle between the two armies out of pity for him.

"Oh yeah! I'm still a ladies man!" said the Prince, who would go down in history as Cockleshmockle.

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The end! What did you think? Please review.


	2. Warrior Within Preview

Prince of Persia: The Previews

Hey, guys! Since I don't actually own Warrior Within or Two Thrones, but have played them, I decided to write some previews for them that you might enjoy! Don't expect fics to come out, though.

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The Prince ran. Leaping and bounding over beautifully rendered streets, he fled for his life as a dark power came after him. He was stopped partway in his progress by a dog.

"Oh, woe is me!" he cried. "Looks like an unbeatable obstacle in my way! Guess I'll have to use my amazing agility and athletic prowess _again!" _Sighing melancholically, he leaped over the dog, which was actually a sleeping puppy that had been de-clawed. The darkness, which had tentacles for some reason, consumed the puppy and continued after the Prince.

"How can I ever stop this from coming after me?" wailed the Prince petulantly. "Guess I'll have to go to the unbearable inconvenience of finding some water to cross! Why does life suck so much?" The Prince, in the years spent fleeing from the Dahaka, had apparently turned from an incredibly stupid would-be ladies man with a penchant for stripping and inappropriate English accents, into an incredibly stupid would-be emo kid with a penchant for crying about how nobody understood him and inappropriate swearing and T&A. This transformation had taken place due to him being unable to eat or sleep with the Dahaka being after him.

You see, to make a long story short, the Prince unleashed the Sands of Time in the last game, er, story. For some reason this changed the timeline, and the Dahaka was now after him to kill him. For whatever reason. Anyway, the Prince continued to run until he found the one thing that had ever stopped him, other than falling debris, piles of rock, undead enemies, lack of sand, stupidity, an annoying princess, and traps: a closed door.

"DAMMIT!" screamed the Prince, displaying his new love of profanity. His manly hands, so used to curling around a gymnast bar or clinging to ledges, scrabbled clumsily on the unfamiliar doorknob. "Why, oh why didn't the designers put in one more contextual action?" He banged uselessly on the door in an attempt to get somebody to answer, then… then the Dahaka got tired of chasing him or something.

The scene cut to the Wise Old Man (trademarked), who the Prince was hanging out with in a desperate attempt to make it seem as if he had friends.

"To avoid the Dahaka… HACK CHOKE," coughed the Wise Old Man, "who of course any given person knows all about… WHEEEEEEEEEZE!" He pounded his asthmatic chest while the Prince smiled indulgently and passed the morphine. "Thank you, young one…" The Wise Old Man popped a few morphine tablets and went on. "You must go to the… the Isle of Time, where… COUGH CHOKE COUGH WHEEZE… the Sands of Time originated! Travel back in time and go to the Isle of Time and keep the Sands of Time from ever… HACKETY HACKERS! Being created!" the Wise Old Man finally finished.

The scene again cut to the Prince on a boat. Somehow, despite being far enough back in time to access the very beginning of it, technology was at a fairly modern level. Also, he had somehow managed to charter a crew.

"This storm shows us no mercy!" he bellowed over the very calm and gentle breeze that was blowing and the tiny drops of water landing on the deck. "We shall respond in kind! That storm has it COMING!" The crew shook their heads in disgust as the Prince stomped off.

"I wonder why the Dahaka hasn't been attacking me," the Prince pondered. "Could it have anything to do with the fact that there's huge amounts of water all around me? …Nah!"

Suddenly another ship drew up to them. It was full of ugly monstrous fanged creatures. Then from below decks emerged a whorish lady who had for some reason decided to be their captain. The Prince drooled as her top slipped and came within a millimeter of exposing a nipple.

"Kill them all!" she shouted, and the fight was on.

A generic Godsmack song began to play as assorted combat scenes took place. The Prince fought a man that was bizarrely made out of crows, the slutty captainess, the Dahaka, random golems, and regular enemies. This showed off the brand-new combat system of dual wielding and button combos, a never-before-seen feature in a game.

"Why are you so gloomy and dark?" asked Kaileena, the love interest, as the Prince fought enemies who made sexual innuendo just for the sake of doing so.

"Because I haven't eaten or slept in years!" complained the Prince as he decapitated a harlot. "Which is possible!"

"Awww, he's a hungry tired widdle baby!" crooned Kaileena delightedly. The Prince almost exploded with rage.

The next shot showed the pirate hooker and the Prince fighting. She cut him across the face, giving him a dark and almost cool-looking scar.

"You bitch!" screamed the Prince. "I know we were fighting to the death, but that's no reason to slash me painfully! It's over between us!"

"Our relationship only consisted of your sketchy attempts to perform combos that removed my clothing!" she sneered back at him in a bad Eastern European accent. The Prince blushed and swiped with his sword at her bra fastener, which she blocked just in time to knock him into the sea.

The next shot showed the Prince opening a treasure chest full of… get this… ARTWORK! So now you get to see how the game looks like as a picture instead of, you know, playing it a little bit. The Prince treated this terrible attempt at replay value with scorn. Not like that method of turning around and walking in a different direction that evidently

constituted non-linear gameplay… now that's just classy.

A new scene showed some of the Prince's new moves. He could slide down large banners now! That's really cool! Yeah! He's, like, extreme sports, man, he drinks his yogurt through a tube now! Yeah, man! The Prince flashed a cheesy, Go-Gurt-stained grin as he valiantly slew an enemy.

"Do the Dew… watch the X-games… something!" he commented.

The rest of the preview was just a ridiculously fast sequence of MTV-like action, romance and more action. The letters flashed on the screen:

PRINCE OF PERSIA

WHINER WITHIN

"My parents don't know who I am!" wailed the Prince before he slit his wrists with a huge spray of blood. He then chickened out and rewound time. "Phew… consequence-free self-harm! How 2004!"

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Did you like that, guys? I may do one for Two Thrones later, so review!


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